how do you address fears in young kids? My just turned two year old has expressed some pretty specific fears; she is scared of things with big teeth and the dark, and she seems to fear "stress". We've been trying to watch some kid movies with her like, over the hedge and finding nemo... and she always says that she is scared during the "scary parts"

I don't really know how to talk to her about this. We have just stopped watching movies, and we have put away all the books with animals with long teeth, and we have night lights EVERYWHERE... but shes two... I cant really explain to her that it's ok, she doesn't understand that. But she doesnt know that she is scared.

is the only solution now to shelter her from it?

We had the same issue with one of my DS. He was scared of some some movies at 2.5 years old and as he got older those movies no longer scared him but some other movies did.I don't recall which movies he was scared of but I know they were Disney movies, we simply put them away and watched them when he was a little older and he was okay with watching them.

Even now at 10 years old some movies made for children his age are still too scary for him, we really don't have a problem with that, we simply shelve watching them until he is ready.

He had no interest in watching Percy Jackson movies until recently and only saw Harry Potter's Sorcerer's Stone movie recently even though he read the Percy Jackson books and first 5 books in the Harry Potter series when he was 7/8 years old. He said he enjoyed reading the books because he used his own imagination to picture the characters and events in the book, but did not want to see the movies since the movies tended to portray the characters and events in a more scary way than he had imagined them while reading the books.

I think it is okay to shelter a child from movies and books that they are scared of. I have had to put away one or two books that were scary for my DS as he was growing up and even ones he hadn't read that I thought might be too much for him such as the last two books in the Harry Potter series until I felt he was emotionally mature enough to read them.

Thank you! I feel so bad for her. I dont mind sheltering her at all, its just so different from my step son who isnt scared of anything.

shes such a tender little thing.

I agree about letting them tell you what movies and books are appropriate for them. We can still only watch Finding Nemo with my DS4.5 if we fast forward through most of it. He has just gotten to be ok with Peanuts movies, but most full length movies are too scary. There are even episodes of Clifford or Paw Patrol he won't watch. Interestingly, in the last year he has shown a lot of tolerance for some scary nature videos (like a lion taking down and eating a prey animal) that even I find uncomfortable, but he is very matter of fact about it. There is something about fictional peril that is scarier. He also doesn't like to watch fictional characters making mistakes and getting into trouble. But we have seen slow progress in his tolerance over time and I have other friends with similar kids.

I wouldn't show most kids movies to a kid that age. In fact most of them i wouldn't show to kids 3 or 4 times that age.

well, and that's kind of our issue too. She is not interested in media designed for younger kids. She wants more mature media with the exception of the scary stuff.

and that my only experience is with a child that had no problems with movies like that.